Light v. Cagle

MUSSELL, J. This is an action to recover for personal injuries and property damage sustained hy plaintiffs in a collision between a Packard automobile being driven by plaintiff Robert K. Light and a Mack truck and trailer owned by defendant F. N. Rumbley Company, a corporation, and being driven by Ira Cortes Cagle. In a second cause of action, plaintiff Kathryn Christine Light, who was riding in the Packard automobile with her father and mother, sought recovery for personal injuries sustained by her in the same [736]collision. A jury trial resulted in a verdict in favor of the defendants in both causes of action and the minor plaintiff, alone, appeals from the judgment.

The contentions of appellant are that the verdict of the jury was not justified by the evidence and that the testimony of the witnesses for the defendants in direct conflict with the proved physical facts does not create a substantial conflict in the evidence as to the negligence of the defendants as the proximate cause of the collision.

The accident occurred at approximately 6 p. m. on June 22, 1951, at the west entrance to an underpass on United States Highway 40, which at the scene of the collision runs in a generally easterly and westerly direction and is a two-lane highway with a white center dividing line. The highway, for approximately 800 feet westerly of the underpass, slopes downward into the underpass and near it there is a highway sign indicating a curve to the left and limiting speed of vehicles to 30 miles per hour. Defendant Cagle was driving the truck and trailer in a westerly direction and entered the underpass at a speed of 12 to 15 miles per hour. He observed plaintiff Robert Light’s ear approaching from the west at a speed of 50 to 55 miles per hour. Cagle testified that he brought his equipment to a full stop as he was emerging from the west entrance of the underpass. Light applied his brakes when about 150 feet west of the entrance. His Packard car swerved over the center line of the highway and struck the left front end of Cagle’s cab. The Packard left skid marks on the highway for approximately 150 feet west of the point of impact and the last 6 feet of these marks west of this point were approximately 31 inches on the north side of the white line.

Photographs of the truck and trailer taken soon after the collision and before the truck was removed show the left front wheel of the cab to be several inches south of the dividing line of the highway and the left rear wheel of the trailer to be on the white line. Appellant argues that these photographs, together with testimony of plaintiffs’ witnesses, establish as a matter of law that the truck and trailer were traveling over the white line and on the wrong side of the highway at the time the accident occurred. We cannot agree with this proposition. Cagle testified that at all times before the collision his equipment was entirely on the right or north side of the dividing white line and that his truck was stopped at the time of the impact. This testimony was corroborated by